broadband employment really is one of the key drivers of job creation and economic growth. the 21st century there has been a democratization of entrepreneurship. people building businesses that in a previous era that would have had to migrate to the coast or would have withered on the vine. because of the connection they are able to innovate. that is powerful in rural america. the communicators, monday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span two. welcomed heart for, connecticut. on american history tv. is one ofcapital america's earliest cities, founded in 1637 by puritan istlers in today it nicknamed the insurance capital of the world.

with the help of our comcast cable partners, over the next 90 minutes we will hear a slavery story with ties to the city. >> what we are at here is the cover of this great autobiography written by venture smith in 1798. this is a earliest known african-american literary voice, and it is one of the great masterpieces of american literature. >> later, learn about the role hartford laid in the civil war. >> we are looking at the beautiful soldiers and sailors memorial arch, dedicated to the 4000 men from hartford who fought in the civil war. hartford was also home to a vibrant literary community. we will visit the home of harriet beecher stowe. but first, learn about mark twain and his role as a father and has very -- and husband. >> when mark twain moved to hartford, it is a very wealthy

town. it was supposedly at that time the richest city in the nation per capita. mark twain's legacy attracts people from everywhere. they get to come inside this house and sort of time travel back to a different time. samuel clemens we know today as mark twain. samuel clemens was born in florida, missouri. grew up along the banks of the mississippi river. when his father died he was 12 years old. sam had to be apprenticed as a typesetter. it certainly influenced a lot of things later in his life. mark twain began looking into hartford as a place to settle with his young wife and their family. his publisher was here with american publishing. he fell in love with the city. wrote letters back to his own family. saying this place was beautiful.

libby had a major inheritance. she would use her money to till -- build the house and decorate it. they built it in stages. when they moved in in 1874 the carpenters were not quite done but they were done enough that the family could come in and take residence. they were mainly on the second floor for a while but ultimately they continued to work on the home. they traveled to europe, made purchases to furnish it. i am excited to welcome you into the master bedroom. this amazing bed is handcarved of black walnut. it was made in italy. the family paid $200 for it, which was a lot of money in those days. a lot of unique features. specifically the headboard. if you notice, sam clemens and

his wife slept facing the headboard. it is so spectacular that you would want to wake up looking at it. probably the best feature is that the little cherubs are removable on each side of the bed. the three daughters were allowed to come in and remove these cherubs. i have to wear my gloves here. they were allowed to play with them as if they were all straight they were able to bathe, powder, and dress them and just enjoy having these. at the end of the day sam clemens insisted they be put back. they would play with them all day but he wanted them back at that time when he went to bed. he said he thought that was the closest he would come to be surrounded by the angels. also very interesting, we have gas lighting in this house.

very modern for the time. sam clemens read and wrote and smoked in bed. he rigged up an extension cord from the gas line. it would be right here by his bed. a lot of people worry when they say, didn't he smoke in bed. yes he did. luckily at the time it was low-density gas. he was not endangering the family. here in the master bedroom we have sam clemens' mother here. there are no photographs of his father. his dad died in 1847. photography was not affordable for a family like that at the time. on the wall we have the four children. baby langdon in the lower right corner did not live in the hartford house but we have his photograph. he died at 19 months of diphtheria. the other three daughters are here on the wall. it is fun to imagine this as a family home with the little

girls running and playing. of course growing up to become , young ladies in this home. the girls have a lot of adventures in this home. the family dined in this beautiful dining room. they would come into the library after dinner and evenings and this was a special spot. the paintings across the top on the walls here and knickknacks on the mantle, they would ask for story. who was he had to begin with the cat in the rough painting on the end. they had certain rules. from there he had to continue across the mantle and incorporate each knickknack and he could not go out of order or repeat himself. he would have to end with the painting of emmaline. himpainting of emmaline. the stories here in the house, the girls would recount as young adult women that that was one of their favorite things.

they could have this wonderful storytime with their father. the conservatory, a bit of a jungle. the daughters called it the jungle. sam clemens would get down on all fours, george griffin, the butler would get down on all fours and the girls would jump on their backs and go hunting for tigers in the jungle and have big adventures in here. it was a busy place. very famous guests would come to visit. dancing dinners in the evening. the family would be around the table themselves. sam clemens was known to get up between courses and pace. almost try out his material. he was often on the road lecturing so he would tell the stories again and again. the girls said they would sneak down some nights and they could tell from where papa was in his story what course was being served.

some of the feel of the family. we are on the third floor. this is the billiard room. we like to call it the original man cave. this is a great room because his friends would come here. they could play into the evening, into the late hours. sam clemens was a big fan of cats. before you had to play billiards you would have to go around and check all the pockets to make sure there were no critters sleeping in them. this was another fun space because george griffin, the butler, would come upstairs from time to time to announce a guest. the guests in those days would bring little calling card. same with take one look at the calling card and he might say, send them up or he might say, i will be right down. he might say something different and that was when he did not want to see the person. he would not lie but he would go over to the little porch on the side, open the door and step out

onto the porch and tell george, tell him i just stepped out. that became known as the stepping out porch. this room is where he did his writing. he would work summers in elmira. i think it is a favorite room because of the writing that happened here. we have his writing desk in the corner. sam had to face the wall to pay attention to his work and not be distracted so he sat in the corner to do his writing. most of mark twain's great books were written while the family lived in this house. when we come into the space we can imagine him up here having his 40 cigars a day. maybe shooting a game here with his friends or george griffin, the butler who was also a close friend. we imagine him piling up manuscripts.

think of the books that were written. he wrote the adventures of tom sawyer. connecticut yankee in king arthur's court. life on the mississippi. adventures of huckleberry finn. this is sort of sacred ground for a lot of people. this is where he would put the finishing touches and get it ready for the publisher. they traveled from this house frequently while he lived here but they would ultimately leave in 1891. they lived here for 17 years. they continued to own the home for quite some time. the economy was starting to go south. sam poured a lot of money at one particular investment. the page compositor. that took a toll on the family's finances. the panic of 1893 put everyone against the wall. not dissimilar from what we experienced in this country in 2008. in 1895 they set out on a round

the world lecture tour. by now the girls were young adults. suzy and jean stayed in elmira with their answer's -- aunt susan. this lecture tour took a year. when it ended they sailed from south africa to england thinking they would rent quarters, be reunited and decide where to go from there. at that point, they did send word to the girls, come over. we are off the road. they received a cablegram back that said susie was ill. expected a quick recovery. sam clemens, everyday waiting for news. the cablegram did come. it was while his wife was halfway across the atlantic ocean.

it described suzy as being peacefully released. suzy clemens died in this home that the age of 24 from spinal meningitis. a very sad occasion. the family had a hard time recovering from that. they did recover from their financial struggles, but at what price? to be away from those daughters for an entire year and to lose susie took quite a toll. after susie's death, i think the family aspired to come back and live in hartford. they were so crushed and devastated, mark twain wrote to libby and said the calamity that comes is never the one we prepare ourselves for. he began referring not to the city of hartford but to the city of heartbreak. they could no longer live here. they wanted to but could not bring themselves to come back. when people come here they hear the story of family, a rising star in our literary world. i think people leave your

understanding he was just like the rest of us. just a guy wanting to raise his family, give them the best he could while making a difference in the world. he knew his writing was widely read. the more famous he became and the more he commented on problems around the world, the more his opinion was sought. it is still valid. when we hear tragedies in the world today, we can pull up not just a quote, but entire passages and volumes he wrote about the challenges we continue to face today. i want people to leave here feeling they know him a little better. that he is more family to them than they might think. american history tv is featuring hartford connecticut. during the civil war veteran industrial several cour --

samuel colt girds it colt of both the north and the south from his factory. more about hartford, all weekend on american history tv. >> i just like getting up and coming to this historic building and going to work. this building is interesting in and of itself. it is the only state capital of its type. the 1880's.n a lot of the decorations in the internal of the building are actually inspired by what was popular at that moment. there was a lot of studying of morocco and of northern africa. if you look at some of the tile floors in this building they basically look like moroccan rugs. if you look at the colors, it is in keeping with the popular style of the 1880's.

a lot of the colors on the walls are inspired by that as well. this is a high victorian gothic structure. one of the other interesting things about this building is when the design and building teamwork chose it, they wanted to have a clock tower. been built that way would be the only state capital with a clock tower. but after awarding the contract they decided we should be more in line with other states that have a dome. the building is full of history. we are standing in one of the holes of the capital and nathan hale, our state hero who uttered the words about having only one life to give for his country in which he said at the time he was

home by the british as an american spy, he was a schoolteacher having completed his school year. he signed up to be a spy for george washington. he was captured in new york city. within 12 or 13 hours he was put to death by the british press but those words about having only one life to live to give for one's country of resonated through the centuries in american history. interestingly enough we have a state hero and we have a state hero in -- heroine. she was also a teacher. for school for black girls in america. she did not get the best of treatment here in connecticut. she ultimately moved from connecticut. it was a difficult moment in our history.

we recognize her as being well ahead of her time. who stalk herr neck out for the good of broader society. state hero, state heroine, both are teachers. this is a great building for history. at thethe cannons entrance is one of the cannons that fired on richmond during the civil war. we have remnants of the battleship the hartford. that was an important shift in the civil war time. it was on the decks of that ship the words were uttered dam the torpedoes, false been ahead -- full speed ahead. a torpedo was a mine. ship that hading a steam engine installed on it. ornament of that ship in the building. it is quite ornate.

interestingly enough, that ornament was incorporated into a punch bowl design for the battleship, the connecticut. it was the lead ship of the great white fleet. they donated the silver to that ship. being the governor of connecticut, and living in hartford, i'm excited every day about challenges of the job. i think attended just connecticut will continue to be leader. the cotton gin was invented in connecticut. the first practical helicopter was flown in connecticut and igor sick risky -- sarkozy himself. we will continue to be a leader and produce good people. the reality is that we are in a much more slow growth part of

our history that we have been in a long time. here, somewhere between 27 and 35 states are still not making as much revenue as they did in 2008, adjusted for inflation. placesone of those because the economy is improving but it has been the slowest improvement at any time in our history since the great depression. so i think a lot of folks expected a recovery to be just like the recovery in the faux second world war timeframe. it is not. are trained do is drill down and building connecticut that can be headed over to the next generation that is better than the one we got. that will be operating on a tighter budget and working more efficiently. all weekend, american history tv is featuring hartford, connecticut, the birthplace of the boys and girls club in 1860.

we travel to hartford to explore his wrist history -- its rich history. objects, 50 stories is an exhibit that came together in 2015 when we went all over the state and asked people to send us images of objects that represent stories they feel defined connecticut as a place, people, and idea. from those submissions, we chose 50 that aren't the defining stories of connecticut, but help us to understand the complexity and depth of our history here. the artifacts on display here related to the american revolution really show how connecticut has played a role in most of american history.

we did not have a lot of battles in connecticut. there were some along the coastline, a raid on dan barrie, but we supplied the continental army, leadership, support, and connecticut as a state continues that role over the following centuries. a number of the items that we have here at the connecticut historical society that are about the american revolution are here in our exhibit. the first is nathan hale's diary, an incredible piece. nathan hale is connecticut's state hero. he was a farmer and schoolteacher, but served with washington's troops outside of boston. he volunteers on a spying mission and goes to new york. at that time, he was caught and hanged, and most known for his quote, my only regret is that i have only one life to give for my country. the diary is really incredible because it talks a lot about everyday life, and what it was

like to be in the continental army, how people were relating to each other, what they were thinking about, their concerns and worries, that what they did on a day to day basis. he really gives us a look at what it was like to be a soldier in the continental army. the other piece we have here is the jacket of one of the connecticut citizens who decided to stay loyal to the crown. about 20% of the population were loyalists. he served in the revolution, serving the british crown, and fought against the revolutionary army. after his time served in the military, he then left and moved to canada, new brunswick, where he became a merchant, and he co-owned a business with benedict arnold until it burned down. there was some disagreement in their business relationship. later, he married a woman from long island and dies in 1805.

there are some really compelling stories in connecticut about loyalists and why they remain loyal instead of joining the continental armor or wanting independence from the british government, and he was just one of those characters. we have so many others in the collection. if you go into our archive and library, you can read diaries about other loyalists, what they were thinking, and why they wanted to stay with the british government, whether that was for economic purposes, about their identity, or even their future plans. the amount of information we have, collections, and object related to the american revolution is actually quite large, because we were founded to save that history. we have furniture, textiles, prints, books, diaries, letters. the connecticut historical society often runs behind the scenes tours, a fantastic

opportunity to show members of the public items in our collection. >> this is the waistcoat of the commander at fort griswold in connecticut. the story behind this is that on september 6, 1781, there was in an attack. someone at the fort noticed an enemy flag and reported it. the idea was to fire off two shots which marked enemies approaching. benedict arnold was on one of the approaching ships, and he knew that this is what they would do, so he fired a third shot, which meant friendly's were approaching. that is why reinforcements were slow to come to the fort, so the british attacked the fort, won out, a general actually stabbed him, accounting for the holes in the waistcoat.

there were originally bloodstains on the waistcoat. however, when it was given, it was decided the bloodstains were too gruesome for the ladies, so they were actually washed out of the waistcoast, which if you ask any historian or archivist, they would probably grimace at the thought. the second article that we have taken out is a cloak, from a 22 year old women from connecticut. her father, henry, was the commissary general for the patriots. he was trying to send messages to george washington who was stationed at boston at the time, and originally he wanted to send his son, but thought he would get stopped.

so he sent his daughter, and she was wearing this cloak when she was sneaking messages past the british. she would hide the messages in her bodice, and she also wore a large bonnet and she did not want to wear it at first, but her mother insisted, and later she remarked it was a good thing because she was able to pull it over her head as she was stopped by loyalist officers. they just remarked that she was an old lady and that she could pass through. she later wrote a letter to her friend telling her about her tales. her father came in and said to make sure she did not give away details as to where george washington was stationed or his whereabouts. our final object is a flag from the second regiment, the last

connecticut infantry color flag left in existence. many question is authenticity because of its color. most flags for the second connecticut regiment were blue at the time. they actually think it was an earlier connecticut militia flag, and that they had continued to use it during the american revolution. the flag is assumed to be made of silk, which is the part of the reason why it has weathered, the dye has eaten away at the silk. >> one of the reasons the historical society has so many artifacts is because we were founded in 1825, just a year before the 50th anniversary of the american revolution, and we were founded because the men and women of connecticut felt like we were losing our history from

that time. that it was disappearing, being scattered amongst people's homes and personal collections, so they wanted to create institutions like the chs where you could bring those mature -- materials together so they could the preserved, shared, and we could learn from them for future generations. 190 years later, we can pull items like this red coat, like nathan hale's diary, like a flag from the revolution, other materials that continue to tell us new stories that we had not known about times that help us become who we are today. weekend american history tv is featuring hartford, connecticut located in the middle of the state hartford began as a trading post on the connecticut river in the 1600s. the town was incorporated in

1764. we recently visited many sites history.g the city's we are in the main branch of the hartford public library outside of the hartford history center. right now we have the exhibit of, making freedom, the life of venture smith, because we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of venture regaining his freedom. 1760ord is the place in where venture smith, has a slave was spawned to daniel edwards and learned to read. it seems symbolic to have the exhibit here. what we're looking at here is the cover of this great autobiography written by venture smith in 1798 this is the family

copy from the library. this is the earliest known african-american literary voice. it is one of the great masterpieces of american literature. venture starts his life in west africa near what is today lake chad in a place called boone garrow. king or theas the chief of this area, which is a fairly wealthy place. they had a lot of gold there. venture was raised to become the ruler of his people. by age 10 or 11 he had already -- hasencer education extensive education. capturesarmy comes in, them, and one of the series? searing moments of his life was

watching his father be tortured to death to find the gold of his people. they then take venture from his home at about 11 years old and miles from over 1000 the interior of west africa down to the gold coast where he is put into a castle and ultimately take it out. venture was bought by one of the officers as a steward. this gives you a sense of what a human being could be worth. fours bought for gallons of rome and a piece of calico. a was transformed into commodity to be bought, sold, and traded over to the great horror of the atlantic slave trade. this rhode island slave ship headed back.

coast,t within the gold they sailed across the atlantic to barbados. the easternmost of the british sugar plantation island. in 1730 91 of the richest places on the face of the earth. being raised by robinson mumford to become his steward or manservant. alreadypoint he is being given education. once the ship makes it back to its home port of newport rhode island, this 11-year-old is put toh the sister of his owner learn english, to learn how to be a manservant, how to live in the colonial culture. he spends a year or so there, and then is taken to fishers island.

about 1740ve from two the end of 1754. hele on fishers island married his wife meg. we know nothing about her except for this wonderful phrase, i married her for love. as soon as venture gets married, all the sudden request for freedom really comes alive. that is what this whole story of his life was all about. recapture thes to freedom he had as a child growing up in africa. first -- they sell venture to thomas stanton. years, next four

ventures owner that he has the worst time with an gets on the worst. ther four years there stanton's sell him to a local broker who brings venture to hartford. instead of selling him, he ponds him for one year for 10 pounds n attorney and judge and hartford. this is the time, this is daniel edwards, this is the point where venture is exposed to a , to aticated household very educated man, who would have taught him how to read and who challenges venture to go home and build the future for his wife and family. 1760 venture gets sold to his last owner. a young merchant, oliver smith,

there andst moved this building a house. he needs venture to help build his house, and the house that venture helps to build is still standing today. venture labors day and night to betweente enough money 1760, when he comes to 1765.gton in himselfs to sell him to for 85 pounds. roomenture said my free that freedom is a privilege which nothing else can equal. 1765,ght his freedom in and that is why this year we are celebrating the 250th of this

great event. we are in the hartford history center now. this is fittingly where we are telling the story of ventures building a family and a dynasty. this rarely talks about real estate which venture starts to spring of in the 1775. at the time of the new republic of the revolution, this was the symbol of freedom. at his peak he owns more than 130 acres. this is a very large farm. he has drydocks, shipping works, and he has become this person that was brought to america as a traded commodity, and has become a traitor in commodities and becomes very wealthy. in 1798, new the end of his life, he actually writes this

great autobiography, which tells us all everything he did, but we was. it is one of the only works that actually talks about him. across the salmon river, venture made his last and his most important real estate transaction. family plot in the first congregational church, which at that point was one of the elite burial grounds in all of connecticut. wife andmself and his his son solomon, and his granddaughter, and two grandchildren are all buried in the family plot.

on his tombstone he put very simple things taken from the memory of venture smith, son of a king, he was kidnapped and sold as a slave, but by his industry he acquired money to purchase his freedom, and died september 19, 1805 in the 77th year of his age. out to be remembered by writing his autobiography and by his tombstone, and for his family to have a legacy. who weres owners prominent people in the 18 century has been forgotten. ventures narrative is still in print. >> all weekend american history

tv is featuring hartford connecticut. samuel clemens, more commonly known as mark twain, lived in hartford while writing the adventures of tom sawyer and huckleberry finn. the c-span city store staff recently visited many sites took interested -- showcased in the city's history. learn more about hartford all we can on american history tv. >> here we are in harriet beecher stowe's home in hartford, connecticut. we invite you to visit. we are standing today in stowe's front parlor. when you visit here, you sit down in this parlor and share a conversation about issues and experiences. stower was born harriet beecher in litchfield, connecticut, and through her life, she lived in boston, cincinnati, brunswick, maine, andover, massachusetts, and then she and her husband

retired to be near her sisters in hartford. in hartford, they had two houses. first in the middle of the civil war, she built her dream house, her glamorous mansion, and they built that house and moved in in 1863 and lived there for eight years and discovered over the years that it was too expensive to maintain, so they downsized to this modest but spacious hartford home where they lived out the rest of their lives. stowe moved into this 4th street house in hartford in 1873, and the house had been built on spec and lived in a couple years. she did not specially build it. she moved in with her husband calvin stowe who she married in 1836, and he was about 10 years older than her. he was a professor of theology.

she moved in with her eldest children, twin girls, her adult daughters, and they were in their 30's. stowe was in her 60's, and calvin was in his 70's. stowe was still writing. she was world-famous. she had reached that pinnacle of fame in her 40's, and now she is in her 60's, and she is still writing to support the family. she did some books in this house and many articles and opinion pieces. harriet beecher stowe's house was a domestic environment. one of the things she wrote about was how to manage your household. she thought and wrote a lot about how women should -- she helped advance the idea that managing your house and thinking about the kind of domestic environment you've built made a better family and made a better america. this house reflects that. it is not just one design, but it certainly reflects the

aesthetic movement of the 19th century, as it's called. it's also a house that reflects that these people had long lives and had deep family connections. it is familial. it is friendly. ? is comfortable. it is used. we work hard as a museum to not have it be too tidy. at the writer's table, there might be crumpled tables on the floor. we want to evoke a home that is lived in. it's not pristine. sitting down with harriet beecher stowe, i think, from her writings and other people's reports, she was a quiet person. she was an introvert. there's a lot going on in her head.

people said things like, you would think she wasn't paying attention, but then she would start to fully participate, and what was happening, she would have thought about characters or stories that would come out later in her books. she held things in her head 20 or 30 years before they came out in her writing. talking with her might of been an interesting experience, because she was thinking about two things at once, the conversation and her characters. another way people described her is that she wasn't a particularly attractive person until she became animated in the conversation, and then there was a light about her and charisma and personality that you didn't see when she wasn't animated. you can see that in the photographs and in the physical evidence we have, likes sculptures and cameos and things that portray her. she might not have met the beauty standards of the day.

few of us do, after all. her character and personality brought that to the fore and made her great company, and of course, harriet beecher stowe was very smart and articulate. she was taught at her father's dining table to make the case for her arguments. harriet beecher stowe's home is a classic victorian environment with two parlors and a dining room downstairs and a kitchen, which wouldn't have been a public space. when you visit, you see those spaces. in the parlors, you see the environment, as much as it was when stowe lived here, as we can tell from our research and the photographs we have. we are lucky enough to have a lot of possessions that stowe owned. we ask people to journey through the house with us. we talk about the past as well

as the present. we are trying to explain stowe's long life and her impact. when you reach the front parlor, you sit down in chairs with the other people of your tour, and you have a conversation about artifacts on this table that represent the issues of the 19th century. when you go onto the second floor, one of the rooms you go into is stowe's that room, which is one of the places she wrote. it is set up with a writing space and evidence of what it took, the struggles she had to write her books, particularly "uncle tom's cabin." >> we are in harriet's front parlor now, which would have been the face of this house. when harriet was formally receiving guests, she would usher them into this room and

begin talking to them about a host of issues she was passionate about. here we have a photograph of harriet beecher stowe sitting in her front parlor where we are. she is sitting right about where i am standing, and you can get a feel for what the room looked like at the time and also get a feel for what harriet looked like. what we are going to try to do is talk about some documents that she may have been seeing in the 1850's when she's coming up with the ideas for "uncle tom's cabin," and in a lot of ways, these documents represent the debates people were having over slavery at the time. on this table, we have historical documents we have reproduced. we want to give our visitors a feel for the debates over slavery that were occurring during harry it's time. we have some reward posters for fugitive slaves that may have been found in the north at the time. we have songs written by abolitionists that would've been sung at different meetings.

we even had teaching tools for abolitionist children. this, for example, gives you a feel for the alphabet but also gives you a poem attach to each letter that talks about negative aspects of slavery. these were effective teaching tools at the time. even more than that, we have photos that would've been circulated in northern newspapers to gain support for abolitionism. this is the photo here of a massive pay to slaves -- of emancipated slaves that would've been found in newspapers. the back parlor would have been more of a private parlor space where harriet would have spent time with her husband or her two daughters. they may be reading to each other. they may be playing the piano. it was more of a relaxation space than a formal entertaining space.

when visitors come into this room, we don't allow them to touch anything or sit on any chairs, although we have reproduced the circular letter, which sometimes we will pass around. now that we have seen harriet's back parlor, we will go into a more private space, harriet's bedroom. we have a lot of items in this through him that give you a feel for what harriet's writing process was like and what the aftermath of the publication of "uncle tom's cabin" was like for her. in terms of her process, you can see over here that harriet didn't have a dedicated writing space. we know that she would've been writing quite a bit in this room, her bedroom, and she was not always the neatest writer when it was going on. we have some papers littered here to give you a feel for what the room would've looked like as harriet is writing. over on this bed, we have an

enlarged reproduction of a newspaper called the "national era." when "uncle tom's cabin" came out, it didn't come out in book form. it was serialized in an abolitionist newspaper called "the national era." every wednesday, a new chapter would come out, and people would gather in each other's parlors and hear it being read aloud. over here, we have a portrait of harriet tubman calvin stowe. calvin stowe was an important figure in harriet's life. he was willing to do many things that would not have been considered usual for men to do. for example, he would take care of the kids in the house so harriet would have enough time to write her book. this would've been considered very unusual for the time, but it is one of the many ways that harriet chose right with calvin. these are a selection of works that harriet wrote while in this house, and we like to show our visitors other works that harriet beecher stowe is known for. we are trying to let our visitors know that harriet has made a lasting impact, and we want to make sure her story is

not forgotten. >> stowe died in 1896. she was 85. she died in this house, as her husband had. when she died, this parlor we are standing in, the front parlor, her coffin was laid out, and this is where the wake was. "the new york times" wrote this up. it was widely reported. she was so famous that many came to visit and to give their respects. she was buried next to one of her children -- two of her children -- who predeceased her and her husband in andover, massachusetts where they had been living when her son henry died. they bought a family plot. you can visit the grave in andover, massachusetts near where calvin stowe worked at the seminary. let's remember that in the 19th century, women couldn't devote. they had limited roles. whatever their class or race, they were restricted. she took the most advantage she

could of the opportunities she had as a woman. she made her name. she made her points, and she argued forcefully for them. she leveraged that to make things happen. in the 21st century, all of that is important because much of her writing, whether it is about domestic life or slavery itself, gives us a framework for today. the past informs the present. here we are today in the 21st century, still struggling deeply, in the headlines and in

our homes and in our friendships, with the many things that stowe was writing about that they were struggling with them. when you visit harriet beecher stowe's house, you are going to have an experience unlike many other historic house museums. >> all weekend long, american history tv is joining our comcast cable partners to showcase the history of hartford, connecticut. to learn more about the cities tour gocurrent to her -- to our website. we continue with the history of hartford. >> welcome to the park. we are looking at the beautiful soldiers and sailors memorial arch. the 4000 men from

hartford who fought in the civil war. 1860 hartford was a city of 29,000 residents. that tells us in hartford, everyone knew someone who fought in the civil war, probably everyone knew someone who died or québec badly wounded i believe that the founders of hartford were really looking to make a statement when they designed this amazing arch. the arch was designed by a local architect by the name of george keller. designer stay why did it connecticut pretty dignity national monuments as well. at the age of 23, they moved to hartford to work for the reticent memorial company. he involved several sculptors in this because he really wanted it to tell a story.

there is a beautiful freeze made of terra-cotta. it stretches 160 feet all the way around on both sides. there were different artists involved in designing it. the woman in the middle the an allegorical figure. under her in the middle are some letters. after the darkness, the sun. that has been the motto of the city of hartford since its founding. facing trials, vince a welcome home, welcome back. on this side of the arch we see the soldiers returning home. many of the badly wounded. some being carried. it is a scene of joy and of sadness. on north side of the r's his 2nd

arch is a second seen by different artists. it shows what kind of war, what kind of radel the civil war soldiers and sailors faced. it was immediate, face to face, torturous, bloody, combat. there is one historical face on the arch. on horseback we see the figure of ulysses s. grant. that is the only face that we know is historically accurate. we do not know who all the others are. one of my favorite things about the arch is that george keller wanted to note that this was a citizen army, and that this arch shows putting. items of war and taking up items of trade.

the carpenter, you can see down his left leg, there is a saw, not easy to car the soul out of stone. you can see the stone age and has a troll in his hand, and i think most important lee, behind him we can see the union are jacket. you can see every tiny bo utton. this one is returning to academia. he had his caps on down, and he is able to discard his military kitbag and go back to being a scholar. this guy is the blacksmith. he was traveling with the cavalry. he has the cavalry charge of his right hand. he can no take up his trade.

this is the farmer, looking behind him. we can see an image of some wheat and his kitbag that he will be able to finally leave behind him. george keller, the architect, originally wanted to include a statue of a merchant as the sixth statute on the tower. sometime in those six years, before the statute directly , and he did island something very interesting. he decided that the sixth statute would not be a merchant, but it would be a place. this is the one statute where the person is not returning to their trade or profession or job before the war. slave, freezeeed in the course of the war. i want to tell you about this lack that was added to the art

in 1988. a seventh grade boy was very d and concerned that the only image of a black person on the arch was a free slave. he knew that there were free blacks being incarcerated at the time of the civil war. that some of them had probably thought. in 1988, when rededicating the arch, they included the s toque and rededicated it the 128 black soldiers who were not previously honored for their bravery and valor in the great civil war. we go. 96 steps.

when the things i would love to talk about at the top of the arch are the angels. we have gabriel blowing the rafael with the symbols. -- angels were a very popular victorian destination. we believe that gabriel is there to represent the day of judgment, and rafael the .esurrection we see the beautiful views. this is our state capital. the capitol building was built in 1878. the arch is one of the iconic images of hartford. for us, as arch volunteers, we have been deeply moved by realizing the impact of the

civil war on hartford. all weekend american history tv is featuring hartford connecticut. hartford began as a trading post on the connecticut river in the 1600s. recentlyty tour staff visited many sites showcasing the city's history. >> we are in connecticut's old statehouse in the middle of hartford connecticut. this building has been here from 1796. the plot of land we have been standing on has been important for a long long time in hartford history. founded he actually hartford on this land.

it was a couple of years later when he delivered a sermon, and out of that sermon was a fundamental order. built in 1796was and the architect was very well-known architect in federal buildings and public buildings. he actually had a hand in the united states capital. and the building is built in the federal style. it was placed on a hill overlooking the river. the idea was to show that even this new government was stable and firm and it was a monumental holding. it was the tallest building around. it was really meant to show the united states is here to stay and the government is firm. connecticut is a small state but for a long time it had teacup

capitals. one in new haven and one in hartford. people start to think that maybe this building was a little too small. the teacher may be felt it was a disgrace to the state because it was too small and in poor condition. he was advocating for the capital to move to bridgeport. there was a little discussion about where the capital should be, and especially the capital city solely made in hartford. buildingoint this became property of the city of until -- andserved then had a period of a bandit meant, and its existence was threatened many times. today the building is used as a museum. it is so much more than a museum.

we do programming that teaches people how government works. exploreograms that different issues today using a historical lens. the 1870's, right before the building was turned over. and room saw good things saw bad things. the last one of the -- that is one of the things we bring out. we make unfortunate decisions and sometimes we make great decisions. a woman had opened up a school for young black women in canterbury, connecticut, the eastern part of the state. her town was not pleased with that. they advocated for a law which made it illegal for anybody to invite out-of-state african-americans to their school if they did not have permission. and she was passed here

broke that law and was arrested for it. years later that law was appealed. another more positive story happened in the 1860's after the was awar, pt barnum legislator at the old statehouse. hard for theked passage of suffrage for african-american men after civil war. that was something he believed in very much. even when the government approved of it and the senate, when it came up to the people of connecticut, it was turned down by a vote of 6000 against it. barnum was not successful at that point, and it wasn't until the federal government made this mandatory that african-americans were allowed to vote in the state in 1870's.

this has a very uncomfortable balcony with hardwood benches and it is hard to imagine anybody sitting on them. but the public was able to come in and observe what was going on in the house of representatives. the house was always open to the public. senatenot so in the until we got a new constitution in 1818. part of that constitution made it so people would be able to come in and watch the senate deliberate. as two historical events. on one side of the trial were captives, that on the other side was the hartford convention of 1814. it began in africa when 53 people were kidnapped, brought captive to cuba on a ship. if the three of these people

were purchased by two men -- 53 of these people were purchased by two men and they were transported to another part of cuba to work in sugarcane. a captive managed to break loose from their shackle. they escaped, they found sugarcane knives, they formed a eugenie, they killed the captain -- some of the crew members formed a mutiny, killed the captain and some of the crew members. owners,iards, the redirected the ship. the ship ended up in long -- it, it was founded by was found by a naval ship. it was brought to london, connecticut. the reason it was brought there was because new york did not have slavery at that time. we did not abolish slavery until 1848.

beganial came here and here and ended up going to new haven and onto the supreme court in washington dc. the other significant event was the hartford convention of 1814. that was a very unfortunate event. statesiefly, new england were starting to feel like they were losing the power they had. they were losing that power to the south and to the west. they wanted to hold on to power. they were not happy with the war of 1812. they felt the new england shoreline was not being protected well. and they had been against the war from the moment it was declared. it had dragged on at this point. they rounded up people from new england to delegate. met in this room. and they have been accused of being the first to try to secede

from the union, which is not true. but what they did as they passed resolutions, they wanted protection for better new england shores. there wanted a change to the constitution. they wanted to give the south -- they wanted to get rid of the cost that gave the south mara presentation. they wanted to make more changes . it probably would have been ok for them to do that, but they secret and that spread a lot of rumors about what they were doing. one they sent their message to washington dc, at the same time andrew jackson had a huge victory in new orleans and everyone was caught up in page got it for. they looked like they weren't patriotic with what was going on in the country. probably i think one of the most lively rooms is the courtroom.

cases as at of big court. when cases were exciting and interesting it captured people's imagination, just like today people would flock to watch what was going on. that made it a very exciting place to be. trials could be almost circus like. there was a murder trial, a young man who had killed his sister and mother. he lived in nearby manchester. violent killing. they were trying to decide whether or not he was insane. this really captured the imagination of people. people came from all over to see it. people peering in the windows andaround this room,

provide for the public and up in the public balcony, but people sitting on the windowsills. it is an important building for people to know about, because it is an iconic structure architecturally. the struggleses that people had over the years in thinking how we deal with issues of freedoms and civil rights and axis to government and all those things. it symbolizes how people come together to make the world a better place. it the wonderful story of the american process, wrapped in an iconic box. is at the heart of hartford and the center of connecticut. >> all weekend american history tvs featuring hartford ofnecticut, the birthplace the boys and girls club in 1860.

learn more about hartford all weekend here on american history tv. >> the cold collection came to the state of connecticut in 1957. it represents a flyover survey of american firearms in the 19th and 20th century. it is very heavy and experimental prototypes where they are working out the design ideas. it is one of our principal tourist draws. colt was a hartford native and had this incredible knack for three-dimensional thinking that he applied to firearms technology and was a consummate draftsman as well. here, we have a number of examples of these original watercolors and blueprints that

he drew up to pay to others especially gunsmiths and mechanics that he hired to help him work up metal prototypes of his guns. to raise money for his vision, sam had a traveling medicine show. he engaged lyceum's in public calls up and down the east coast. he was known as dr. coult. and he would get people high with laughing gas and make fools in front of audiences. his travels up and down the coast brought him in contact with john pearson in baltimore to engage him to work up with the prototypes with the earliest of the colts. from the earliest day sam was trying to get military contracts. they tend to be ready lucrative

in large numbers. at the time, he was competing against the well-established pistols of the united states army. this was the model of 1836. this was adopted body armor from these troops. dragoons, calvary. these would be in big leather holsters. issuing two per soldier. in sammy's mind, if he could provide a multi-firearm with six shots, once he could perfect that, he could make these obsolete. john pearson worked up three-dimensional prototypes based on his watercolor drawings. a handful of his prototypes they have actual examples and working

models of handguns and up the long arms as well. he was able to convince relatives who are wealthy and connected in paterson, new jersey to build him a four story granite factory. he started from scratch. he had never been involved in making them in any kind of quantity. his role in the country -- company was research and design and as a salesman for his product he was a great sales promoter. his frustration was he did not have the financial control that he needed and he believed he was being nickeled and diamond by his relatives. by hiseled and diamondimed relatives. looking at the case sets you can see how complicated the deal all these other accessories required

to load a paterson pistol and the concept of the pattersons was you had to take them apart to load it. another problem was in the design. this was the recoil shield. this is just held to the frame of these two screws. they would crack and sheer. a lot of the failures of the paterson revolvers was that they literally blew apart in some cases. in some cases, the whole part of the gun with separate from the frame. sometimes because of metallurgical problems or in -- or improper loading or too power. the texas navy bought about 180 of his holster revolvers and some of these ended up with texas rangers and because of that there was an officer samuel

walker that contacted cold and , heontacted colt and said has a good idea here at with some improvements we can make it even better. in the dialogue between samuel walker and samuel colt, in 1847 or 1846, he came up with the idea of this really heavy revolver that eliminated a lot of the designs and manufacturing problems inherent in the paterson line of firearms. first and foremost, the recoil shield and the frame are all forged as one piece. this is an incredibly strong arrangement here. totally eliminated the prospects of the barrel and the cylinder literally blowing off the rest of the gun.

it is a large bullet that fired a powder charge of about 60 grains of powder which was a tremendous amount. he claimed that up until he -- until the advent of the. 357 magnum this is one of the most powerful handguns in terms of shocking power and velocity. in the 1840's, sam returned to his hometown of hartford. a certain amount of family money and backing but nowhere on the scale of paterson operations. at this time, he gets the u.s. army contract for the walker revolvers. he doesn't have manufacturing plants but he contracts with eli whitney, junior in new haven. just about the time that eli whitney junior is producing the walker revolvers, sam is holding a four-story brick factory.

-- is building a four-story brick factory in hartford. and it is here that he begins his production of the so-called dragoon revolver, that is a collector term, it's basically the new model holster pistol which reduces the barrel length. he shortens the cylinder of little bit and puts a catch on the end of the ram or so each time you fire it doesn't drop down. the walker would have a tendency to do that. this is the one that attracted the interest of the u.s. government from 1850 to 1858. the colt company manufactured and sold about 18,000 of these. after his first factory was constructed with four stories of brick, he needed even larger facility so he quietly bought up land in the south meadows.

in the course of a couple of years, he made this the largest private armory at the time. a few stories with round stone, each floor with 30,000 square feet. it was a tremendous facility. the preeminent landmark in hartford along interstate 91. you can see it in the gold dome. it is absolutely in your face. that was part of the design in sam colt's mind at the time. for this bold telling statement and pronouncement presentation of self in factory. it was up and running by late 1855. >> a major factor in his success was he surrounded himself with the brightest and best of the time period of the illegal

representation. ek route who had learned his trade told manufacturing in collinsville was lured away i sam to be his main machinery guy. and production line. his efficiencies came out. for reasons not clear to us, in 1857, ek route, retired from the company and goes off on his own. it lasted about eight years. it burned down. it caught fire in 1864. we do not know the cause. the claim was made of an -- of confederate saboteurs but it was likely an oily rag in the corner. that was one of the many misfortunes that the fell the

company. the greatest was sam seth in 1862. they were able to hire ek route back to be the president and operator of the company. in 1865, ek route dies as well. between the fiscal plan and management, it's constant turnover. elizabeth colt was a lady. she wanted the vision to continue. so she had the factory rebuilt. it was up and running in 1867. the company legacy to this day makes it the best known firearms manufacturer around the globe. everybody knows that brand name. his showmanship and marketing skills. to a large extent they carried on that tradition to this day and age.

>> our city tour staff recently traveled to hartford, connecticut to learn about its rich history. learn more about hartford and the other stops on our tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> booker c -- booker t said to him, we have kids covered here in alabama. kids inas literally elementary school who are suffering. african-american kids are getting poorer education. this is separate and not equal. >> tonight, documentary filmmaker talks about her latest film